Call Out: The Collections Project with The Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium of South Australia 2025

Applications are now open for The Guildhouse Collections Project with the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium of South Australia. 

Guidelines 

Objectives 

Guildhouse’s ongoing commitment to celebrate, connect and showcase South Australian contemporary artists, craftspeople and designers has informed The Guildhouse Collection Project since its inception in 2014.

Developed in partnership and collaboration with multiple South Australian state institutions and collections, this project importantly nurtures ongoing cross sector multi-disciplinary exchange—and provides a unique opportunity for Guildhouse to promote its members to broad, new and diverse audiences.

The core aims of the project are to:

• promote public understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of visual art, craft and design
• provide economic and artistic opportunities for creative professionals
• offer professional development opportunities for visual art, craft and design practitioners
• develop new and diverse audiences for participants
• bring a different lens to South Australia’s significant cultural, scientific and living collections
• engage audiences in innovative ways with some of the key objectives of our state institutions.

About the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium collections 

The Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium manages living, cultural and preserved collections and through science and research improves understanding and appreciation of the botanical world. Our science underpins evidence-based decisions to inform effective legislation, policies, education, management and land use practices. In addition, it contributes to the knowledge economy and supports the community’s resilience and sustainability.

The Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium engages with the wider community to share stories about plants and enhance understanding and appreciation of the importance of plants in sustaining life, and as a key part of our cultural identity and social fabric.

Available collections 

Artists are invited to research and develop new work by accessing the living collections, the cultural collections held in the Museum of Economic Botany, Archives and Library, and the scientific collections held in the State Herbarium and Seed Conservation Centre. The artist will also have negotiated access to horticultural staff who curate the living collections, scientists and researchers from the State Herbarium and Seed Conservation Centre, and the Manager of Interpretation and Cultural Collections.

The BGSH Living Collection:
The Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium is the custodian of a unique living plant collection, representing 128 countries from around the world planted  across three gardens Adelaide Botanic Garden , Mount Lofty Botanic Garden and Wittunga Botanic Garden:

• Adelaide Botanic GardenAdelaide Botanic Garden opened to the public in 1857 and was influenced by British, French, German and Dutch styles— reflected today in the heritage of the buildings and landscapes. Its glasshouses grow collections that provide access to plants rarely seen in South Australia such as the Madagascar Collection in the Palm House and the South American plants displayed with the Amazon Waterlily Pavilion.
• Mount Lofty Botanic Garden
  A cool temperate garden in the Adelaide Hills, Mount Lofty opened to the public in 1977. It displays a wide selection of exotic taxa as well natural stands of Stringy Bark woodland —an icon of the Mount Lofty Ranges. The Garden takes advantage of the cool, moist climate (hills environment to grow rare collections of Rhododendrons and Magnoliaceae.
• Wittunga Botanic Garden
  Wittunga Botanic Gardens opened to the public in 1975. Originally a private garden established in 1902, it displays and compares Western Australian and South African floras such as the Kwongan and Fynbos vegetation. The garden showcases stands of Western Australian trees and large shrubs, many associated with the Ashby family, the original owners.

Museum of Economic Botany and cultural collections
Home to an impressive permanent collection dating back 130 years, the Museum of Economic Botany is the last museum of its kind in the world. Since its inception in 1881 the Museum has housed a rich collection dedicated to the interpretation of plants deemed useful to humans. Economic botany underpins the economic, environmental, social and cultural fabric of all societies. The collection bridges a vast time span. from a fragment of linen from an Egyptian mummy to the life-like fruit models made from papier mâché in Germany between 1866 and 1890.The cultural collection also includes over three thousand artworks by botanical artists some commissioned by the Herbarium to document specimens, others who were drawn to capturing the natural world. Amongst the collection are noted women artists such as Ellis Rowan, Rosa Fiveash and Alison Ashby. The BGSA Library and archives includes documents and photographs recording the evolution of the gardens, and rare botanical publications dating back to the 17^th century.

The State Herbarium Collection
The State Herbarium Collection is composed of preserved plant parts or samples that are used to support the taxonomic research of the Herbarium’s staff and national and international researchers. The collections form an evidence base of a species’ presence in particular places at particular times for use by the South Australian community and to meet state, national and international research goals.

Available collections through the State Herbarium Collection consists of:

• Vascular plants (pteridophytes, gymnosperms and flowering plants). The vaults have over one million preserved herbarium specimens which continue to grow by around 10,000 specimens per year.
• Bryophytes (mosses, hornworts, and liverworts) containing specimens from world-authoritative bryophyte taxonomists.
• Fungi (mostly macro-fungi and non-pathogenic forms). The Herbarium holds the comprehensive and globally significant fungi collection of Sir John Cleland.
• Lichens
• Scientific illustrations, documentation of specimens including digitisation (imagery)

Seed Conservation Centre Collection
The work of the South Australian Seed Conservation Centre assists in the conservation of South Australian flora, in particular its threatened plant species. It supports on-ground restoration activities, including the recovery of post-fire recovery following devastating fires in 2019-20.

Wild seeds from plants indigenous to South Australia have been collected from across the state and safeguarded in long-term storage at subzero temperatures in our on-site Seed Bank in Adelaide Botanic Garden. The Centre undertakes an active research program that supports effective collections management and our ability to use the stored seeds in the future.

There are over 2,000 of the 3,500 individual species of the State’s plants represented in the seedbank, with over 85% of the State’s threatened flora in storage. To help bolster the number of seeds that are stored in our freezers, and that are used for regeneration projects, the team created a Threatened Plant Seed Orchard, located at Adelaide Botanic Garden.

Themes for 2025

Optional – Applicants are invited to consider one of the following themes in their proposal:

• Theme 1: Humanity has an intrinsic fascination with and reliance on plants and nature
  This theme explores our innate connection with the living world. It reflects on human reliance on plants through time and how plants may provide the answers to our future survival. It looks at the importance of plants as a source of food, medicine, dyes, fibre, shelter, wellbeing, and the many cultural uses of plants including First Nations peoples’ connections to Country and understanding of its flora.
• Theme 2: Our biodiversity is shaped by dynamic earth processes and intricate relationships between species
  This theme explores the complex and changing nature of ecosystems—from investigating ancient landscapes shaped by climate, fire, and continental drift, to the devastating impacts of humans in the Anthropocene. It looks at the interconnectedness of animals, plants, and the elements, and how one tiny shift in an ecosystem can alter everything. It explores the crucial role of pollinators, the preciousness of water and the critical part that soil plays in a sustainable world.
• Theme 3: The study of our flora continues to reveal fascinating things about plants, helping to provide real, practical benefits to our society and the planet
  Evolution as we know is a never-ending process, operating on multiple timescales. Our knowledge is no different. This theme celebrates the critical role science plays in benefiting the community and highlights the importance of taxonomy as a fundamental scientific discipline.
• Theme 4: Historically and globally, botanic gardens facilitated colonial expansion and the exploitation of colonised societies.
  Intrinsically colonial constructs, botanic gardens traditionally privileged European knowledge systems over First Nations’. The global exchange of plants through botanic gardens grew the wealth of empires while exploiting the colonised. This theme promotes the need for truth telling around our Gardens’ cultural, living, and scientific collections.

The following activities will be undertaken by the recipient  

Research, development, and production of new work will be undertaken over an extended period. This will enable the selected artist/s to produce well considered, high quality creative outcomes that reflect their extensive engagement with the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium. The activities undertaken during this period will include:

• consulting and interacting with specialist BGSH and Guildhouse staff
• accessing collections relevant to their area of interest
• developing and producing new work appropriate to their research

Both BGSH and Guildhouse feel it is essential that selected artists take full advantage of this research opportunity in order to produce innovative and complex work that thoroughly engages with their area of interest.

The Presentation
The presentation of new artwork(s) will be developed in consultation with BGSH and GH teams. For the first time, the Garden is asking artists to think outside the MEB ‘box’ and develop works specifically for presentation outdoors. Please note: The Collections Project presentation is a temporal presentation and all fee’s relating to the development and presentation of works are within the artist fee.

Documentation
Guildhouse will commission professional documentation of the work and/or exhibition for the purpose of promoting the artist, their work and the program.

Public Program
The recipient will develop and deliver at least one artist talk and/or community engagement activity / workshop in support of the program. These activities should relate to the ideas and creative processes associated with the project.

Evaluation
Guildhouse will conduct an evaluation process of the project to gain important information about the success of the program outcomes. Participating artists will contribute to this process by producing a short report at the end of their project.

Call Out Information Session

• Tuesday 4 February 2025
• 10:30am – 12:00pm
• Meeting at Visitor Information Centre, Adelaide Botanic Gardens
• RSVP essential

Complementing the The Guildhouse Collections Project with Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium call out, applicants are encouraged to join the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium team for a free information session to meet horticultural staff and have a walkthrough of possible presentation locations in the gardens. 

All enquiries regarding The Guildhouse Collections Project application process should be directed to Guildhouse.

CALL OUT CLOSES:
Monday 10 February 2025, 9am